Venice, the Italian city of water ways and festivals, masquerades and balls. The city of romance and life but beneath the joviality and parties lay darker things. Vampires roam the night and lycanthropes howl at the moon. Do you dare take residence?

Description: Dillon is not quite the tallest person in his family at a formidable height of 5' 11" but he is a close second. With his height comes a lean but powerful build, muscles honed from years of kick-boxing and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

He does not appear to be overly bulky but nor has he ever been mistaken to be skinny. It is apparent no matter the clothing that he is built for fighting from the strength of his broad shoulders to the power in his long and well-formed legs. Every inch of him is hard muscle and he does his damndest to maintain it. How better to deter meaningless fights than to appear the very powerhouse that he is?

His skin is warmly tanned from spending a good deal of his time practicing outdoors and his thick, golden blonde hair is ket fairly short and spikey to keep it out of his face. His eyes are a stormy blue-gray that tend to darken or lighten depending on his mood. As well they tend to favor whichever color he wears so depending on the shade of blue, gray, or what-have you they can appear various shades of either of the two colors.

Personality: Dillon is a bit of a wonder in himself. A rather amusing mixture of lover and fighter. He can be teasing and gentle, even a pain in the arse with his devilish sense of humor but spark his anger and he will thrash the living daylights out of you without blinking. Especially if you harm a woman or child. He may be estranged from his family but he certainly has family values and certain things you just don't do.

He is a loyal protector of those he loves and cares for, those he considers friends or family of one sort or another. He'll stick his neck out for any and every one of them. And he is a vengeful enemy to any that would harm them. He's never really considered himself a leader but he picks up followers easily simply for being the fierce protector and loving goofball that he is. He's also a bit of a smartass which has sometimes gotten him into a spot of trouble but nothing a few ice packs and a bottle of Guinness couldn't heal.

History:Dillon Oliver McSwain was born in Belfast to proud parents Cassidy and Aonghus McSwain on August 5th 1976. The second of two sons, the elder being Aedan. Their father was a naval architect for the Harland and Wolff shipyard -basically he was charged with designing, constructing and reparing various types of marine vessels- and their mother was a stay at home mom.

They lived a pretty simplistic but very happy life even when the going got tough in the time of the Troubles. The conflict -akin to a civil war- between the Roman Catholics and the Protestants that claimed hundreds of Irish lives. Their family remained pretty intact throughout the conflict and thought the shipyard saw some hard times because of this infighting it managed to pull through and the McSwains along with it.

Aonghus taught his boys the ins and outs of architecture and Aedan seemed to take to it... but not in a way that Aonghus approved of. Rather than focusing on building ships he decided to persue the theatre. Building and designing sets, doing tech, things like that. Matter of fact that was how he wound up meeting a fiery redhead named Jillian Donohue, an actress whom he later went on to marry. Fresh out of school at that.

Dillon was only fourteen when his niece, Liliana, was born and before he could do more than hold her a handful of times and marvel at her tiny baby fingers and toes, Aedan and Jillian were off to America to start a new life with their newborn baby. Some sort of casion theatre place that needed young, bright techs and whatever. The family was incensed but they gave their blessing and helped the young couple to immigrate. Dillon was severely annoyed at his big brother for separating the family like that but who was he to say anything? Aedan was by all accounts an adult at twenty while Dillon was still a child. Barely into his teens.

Yes he had his father but Aonghus, though well meaning, could be a bit stuffy and not as easy to talk to as Aedan had been. With Aedan's immigration and whatnot, Dillon's father became more determined to crack down on his younger son, which made Dillon all the more rebellious. He was constantly getting into scraps with other kids, more often than not being on the losing end when he wound up tangling with multiple kids at once.

At the urgings of his mother that he find a better outlet for his frustrations he started going to one of the local martial arts centers -of which there were surprisingly few- and started taking lessons. He dabbled in a couple styles here and there since the Sensei offered many but the one that he found a knack for was Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu. It focused on grappling, full body contact. Perfect for Dillon since he rather enjoyed getting his opponents on the ground.

By the time he was sixteen he'd already achieved purple belt in the adult belt rankings; adult being anyone sixteen and over, juniors being fifteen and under. Considering he'd started the classes at age fourteen it wasn't too big of a stretch. He was a very fast learner and a dedicated pupil.

It was also at age sixteen that, upon being dragged to work by his father yet again to observe an ongoing business deal, Dillon met a young man -two years his senior- by the name of Alaric Krupp. Their fathers were conducting a business deal of sorts that held absolutely no interest for Dillon himself and he was in a rather poor mood for having been dragged along in the first place. So it did not help at all when, while the adults were conversing amongst themselves and the boys had been shooed out, Alaric began to tease young Dillon quite inappropriately.

Dillon had been too wrapped up in his Jiu-Jitsu training and of course too busy with his father's attempting to make him business savvy to really pay attention to his sexual preferences or even begin to explore them. So, when Alaric began making advances and teasing him wickedly he was quite confused and not a little irritated. But the older boy's seduction won out over Dillon's halfhearted protests and his virginity became a thing of he past in no time flat.

Of course he kept it quiet from his father, Aonghus would never approve of such a union and he wasn't all that sure he approved himself. Alaric was high-handed, arrogant, cocky... and damn him but he was charming as anything. And handsome to boot. The young Irish boy was no match for the strapping German who was already considered a man by social standards. And over the course of the month, despite himself, Dillon found himself falling for him. Oh he'd put up a good struggle once in a while and be a bit fiesty, play hard to get... but the truth of the matter ws that he was falling and falling hard.

He was met with a rather rude surprise one night when, while during their intimacy, Alaric shifted on top of him. He was thoroughly horrified, not because his lover was a shifter but because he was shifting on top of him and while still buried within him. By some miracle he didn't wind up killin ghimm but the screams and various other sounds alerted the household and Dillon's parents burst in on them. He was in such a state of shock that he completely blacked out, not resurfacing until a couple of weeks later to find that Alaric had been set away. And his father, though still grudgingly working to seal the deal between companies, forbade Dillon from contacting the German youth. he couldn't even write him a letter to tell him he was okay and that he didn't hate him for not telling him about his lycanthropy.

Having heard about his new condition, Dillon's instructor turned him over to a colleague of his. It would be too dangerous for the boy to continue to learn with the rest of them, he needed to be taught by someone who could handle his strength and any incidents that arose during training. It was just extremely lucky for Dillon that this colleague was with the local Pride. An Alpha and a very patient teacher. He taught him the ins and outs of both his chosen martial art and of his lycanthropy. Aonghus did not approve but he knew it was a necessary evil or Dillon risked hurting or even killing someone. And he did not want Dillon to be responsible for something so reckless, not after what had happened to him. He would never forget it or let Dillon forget it.

When Dillon was twenty years old, well in control of his beast for someone of four years in fected, he was sent away to school in Venice to learn architecture. Aonghus wanted him to learn of it, not just Naval Architecture but all of it so that he might better understand the business he would be hopefully getting into when his schooling was done. Every chance he got he was to come home and train with his instructor who was now Rex of the Belfast Pride. It was an arrangement that was made clear to the McSwain father and son, and the Rexes both of Belfast and of Venice that this was vital for it would help him gain strength and it would keep him focused. It wasn't as if there was anyone qualified to take over his training, at least no one that the Irish rex found suitable. And he was not about to have his best pupil drop his training. Not when he could easily achieve a black belt within the next couple years.

Even after he had achieved such statust at twenty-two he continued to come back to train. By Twenty-four he was a Beta lion on the verge of being an Alpha which was all well and good. Though when it came to school, he had lost all interest in architecture and had dropped it in place of -of all things- Greek and Roman mythology. An on-again, off-again girlfriend of his while in school had taken it up for kicks and he'd been pressed on many occasions to help her study. Thus he'd been hooked and utterly fascinated by it.

Of couse Aonghus was infuriated that his only other son was throwing away his life to study what, in his oppinion, amounted to pagan fairytales rather than learning the ropes of being a respectable Naval Architect like his father. But he didn't want to completely lose ties with Dillon as he had with Aedan so though it pained him he learned to accept that his son was a free spirit and would do as he would. He even funded his travles to both Greece and Rome, various places in between so that he could better study his beloved subjects in thorough detail.

By age 31 he had reached Alpha status and was being offered the chance to teach at various universities but in the end he chose to go back to Venice. It had become his second home, the Pride his family. Though he'd heard rumors over the past year that there had been a change in authority for the Venice Pride. Whether or not it was a good thing remained to be seen and when he returned he returned quietly, establishing himself first at the University before even thinking of encroaching on Pride territory. Perhaps then he would have more of an excuse to be accepted rather than be told to pack up and get out.

weaknesses:-Skewed sense of self-preservation (puts others before himself to an almost extreme point but not to a suicidal extent)-Hard-headed-Reckless in regard to his own person-Silver-Has been known to hold a grudge